The Mountains of California

Adorned with new covers by artist Lisel Jane Ashlock, these two classic texts show off famed naturalist John Muir's writing at its finest. My First Summer in the Sierra presents Muir's journal entries from his first long-term adventure in Yosemite and the surrounding area, when he helped drive a flock of sheep through the foothills toward the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers. The Mountains of California takes us on a tour of the Sierra Nevada (with occasional forays into the Coast Ranges and the Central Valley) that captures the grandeur of the region's topography, forests, glaciers, weather, and wildlife in eloquent prose. In both books, Muir's vivid descriptions of nature are infused with his characteristic wonder at the magnificence of wilderness, from a single lily whose beauty "puts the roughest mountaineer on his best behavior" to a vista of the luminous Range of Light.